Jerrod Ankenman Co-author of The Mathematics of Poker

Quick Bio

Well rounded poker pro who uses math for fun and profit.

Tournament Results

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Jerrod Ankenman's Biography

Jerrod Ankenman has used his skills as a mathematician to attain world-class success in poker. He graduated from Pepperdine in 2004 with a degree in Business Management. Later, he moved on to Columbia University where he graduated with a Masters in Applied Mathematics in 2010.

Jerrod graduated to poker from the world of bridge. He was a competitive bridge player as a teenager and in 1999 he discovered that poker was offered in Los Angeles. After his first trip to the Commerce Casino, he bought some books and started frequenting the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup.

In 2000 he met Bill Chen at BARGE 2000 and Bill began backing Jerrod in bigger tournaments. Once online poker began to take off, Jerrod quit his job to play the game professionally.

Jerrod's focus on poker is not solely on Texas Hold'em. He is versed in most variants of the game and has recorded success in over a dozen variants ranging from Crazy Pineapple to Five Card Draw.

Jerrod's breakthrough performance in live poker came at the 2006 World Series of Poker. He finished runner-up in a $3,000 Limit Hold'em Event to earn $150,586. He would continue to show his prowess in Limit Hold'em at the 2008 WSOP when he finished runner-up in the $10,000 Limit Hold'em World Championship. The $307,380 earned in the event is his largest live score to date.

In 2009, Jerrod would take down his first career WSOP bracelet. He navigated his way through a stacked field of 412 runners to take down the $2,500 Mixed Event and $241,654. At present, Jerrod has $825,063 in live tournament earnings.

In 2006, Jerrod co-authored The Mathematics of Poker with Bill Chen. The book is an introduction to game theory and quantitative techniques as they relate to poker. Jerrod is currently working on his Ph.D. in Applied Math at Yale and will graduate later this year.

Over the last few years, Jerrod has coached high stakes poker players were especially aware of game theory issues and helped them to improve their win rate against elite competition. Jerrod now joins Ivey League to produce video that will help student improve their understanding of math concepts as they relate to the game.